and governments, without paying any attention to their actual content and the distorted, abusive use they tend to make of the vote that justified them and placed them where they are.
You should not conclude from what I have just written that I am against the existence of parties: I am a member of one of them myself. You should not think that I abhor parliaments or their members: I would wish both to be better, more active and responsible in all things. Nor should you believe that I am the Providential creator of a magic recipe that will allow people henceforth to live without having to put up with bad government and waste time on elections that rarely solve the problems: I just refuse to accept that it is only possible to govern and wish to be governed according to the supposedly democratic models currently in use, which to my mind are distorted and incoherent, and which certain politicians (not always in good faith) want to make universal, along with the false promises of social development that barely manage to disguise the egotistical and relentless ambitions that really motivate them. We nurture these ills in our own home, then behave as though we were the inventors of a universal panacea capable of curing all the ills of the body and the spirit of the planet’s six thousand million inhabitants. Ten drops of our democracy three times a day and you will be happy forever. The truth is, the only really deadly sin is hypocrisy.
October 9: God and Ratzinger
What might God think of Ratzinger? What might God think of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church of which this Ratzinger is sovereign pope? As far as I know (and it is fair to say that I know rather little), no one has ever yet dared to formulate these heretical questions, perhaps knowing in advance that there are not nor will there ever be answers to them. As I once wrote during a spell of vain metaphysical inquiry, a good fifteen years ago, God is the silence of the universe and man is the cry that gives meaning to that silence. It is in the Lanzarote Notebooks and it has been quoted frequently by theologians of the neighboring country who have been so kind as to read my work. Of course, for God to think something of Ratzinger or of the church that the pope has been trying to rescue from a totally predictable death—whether from starvation or from failing to find ears to hear it or faith to reinforce its foundations—it would be necessary to demonstrate the existence of said God, the most impossible of tasks, in spite of the supposed proofs offered by Saint Anselm; even Saint Augustine confessed that trying to explain the Trinity was like emptying the ocean with a bucket into a hole in the sand. The reason that God, if he exists, ought to be grateful to Ratzinger is the concern the pope has shown in recent times for the delicate condition of the Catholic faith. People do not go to mass, they have stopped believing in the dogmas and acting on the prejudices that generally made up the basis of spiritual life for their forefathers, and of their material life too, as happened, for example, with many of those bankers established in the very first years of capitalism, who were strict Calvinists and, as far as one can gather, of a personal and professional honesty that was proof against any devilish temptation of a subprime variety. The reader might perhaps be thinking that this sudden switch in the transcendent subject I began by broaching—that is, the Episcopal synod gathered in Rome—was a more or less dialectic ploy to introduce a critique of the irregular behavior (to say the least) of contemporary bankers. That was not my intention, nor is this my area of expertise, if I have such a thing.
So then, let us return to Ratzinger. Something occurred to this man, who is undoubtedly intelligent, with an extremely active life within and around the Vatican (suffice it to say that he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the successor, though using other methods, of the ominous Holy Office, formerly better known as the Inquisition), something that one might not expect from someone with his degree of responsibility, whose faith we should respect while not respecting the expression of his medieval thinking. Scandalized by secularism, frustrated at the church’s abandonment by the faithful, he opened his mouth at the mass with which the synod began to let loose such outrageous remarks as “If we look at history, we are forced to admit that this distancing alienation and rebellion of inconsistent Christians is not unique. As a consequence, God, though never breaking his promise of salvation, had to resort frequently to punishment.” In my village they used to say that God punishes with neither stick nor stones, and that’s why we have to be afraid of another one of those floods coming to drown all the atheists, the agnostics, the secularists in general, along with other promoters of spiritual disorder en masse. But God’s designs are boundless and unknown, so perhaps the current president of the United States has already been a part of the punishment reserved for us. Anything is possible if God wills it. On the crucial condition that he exists, of course. If he doesn’t exist (or at least he has never spoken to Ratzinger), then these are all just stories that no longer frighten anyone. God, they say, is eternal, and he has time for everything. Eternal he may be; we can allow that much so as not to contradict the pope, but his eternity is only that of eternal not-being.
October 13: Eduardo Lourenço
I have stubbornly remained in debt to Eduardo Lourenço since 1991—for exactly seventeen years. It is a rather unique debt, because although it would be natural for him, as the creditor, never to have forgotten it, it is rather less common that I, the debtor, contrary to the nature of my kind, have never denied it. However, if it is indeed true that I have never pretended to be oblivious to my debt, it should also be said that he has never allowed me to be deceived by his tactical silences on the subject, which he intermittently breaks, saying, “So what about those photographs?” My response is always the same: “Oh hell, I’ve been very busy with work, but the worst thing is I’ve still not been able to send them off to get the copies made.” And he, every bit as consistent as I am, “There are six of them: you keep three and give me back the rest.” “No, never, that would be absurd, you should have them all,” I always reply, hypocritically magnanimous. Now, the time has really come for me to explain what these photos are. We were—he and I—in Brussels, at Europalia, and were wandering about like any other curious people from hall to hall, commenting on the beauties and opulence displayed, and Augusto Cabrita was with us, camera at the ready, in search of the immortal moment. What he was expecting to find at the moment when Eduardo Lourenço and I stood with our backs to a baroque tapestry of some historical or mythical scene, I don’t really know. “Right there,” commanded Cabrita, with that fierce air that photographers have in what I imagine they consider critical situations. To this day I have no idea what little demon made me not take the solemnity of the moment seriously. I began by straightening Eduardo’s tie, then invented something about his glasses not being on straight and devoted myself to putting them in their proper place, where in fact they had been all along. We started laughing like two little boys, he and I, while Augusto Cabrita with one shot after another took advantage of the occasion that had been offered him on a platter. That is the story of the photographs. A few days later, Augusto Cabrita, who died two years ago, sent me the pictures, thinking no doubt that they would be in good hands. They were indeed good hands, or not altogether bad hands, but, as I have explained, not very effective ones.
Some time after that I came to write the novel All the Names, which, as I thought at the time and continue to believe today, could have had no one better than Eduardo to present it. I made this known to him, and he, good chap that he is, agreed at once. The day came, the biggest room in the Altis Hotel was bursting at the seams, and no sign or word of Eduardo Lourenço. You could breathe the concern in the heavy air—something must have happened. On top of this, the great essayist has a reputation for haplessness, and he might have got the wrong hotel. So hapless, so hapless indeed, that when he finally did arrive he announced, in the calmest voice in the world, that he had lost his speech. There was a general “Ah” of consternation, in which I did not join. For a terrible suspicion had assailed my soul: that Eduardo Lourenço had decided to take advantage of the occasion to avenge himself for the episode of the photographs. I was wrong. With or without his notes, the man was as brilliant as ever. He started off on some ideas, weighed them up with the misleading air of someone who was thinking about something else, left a few
